Cinematical

At the Manufacturing Dissent premiere during SXSW, Debbie Melnyck claimed that she and co-director Rick Caine originally intended to film a straightforward biography of activist/filmmaker Michael Moore, whose movies they enjoy. However, circumstances transformed the project into a look not only at Moore but at documentary filmmaking. Manufacturing Dissent discusses the filmmaking tactics used by Moore and also uses some of those same tactics to create an interesting film. In other words, this is a Michael Moore-style documentary about Moore himself. The documentary follows Moore on his 2004 "Slacker Uprising" tour when he attempted to persuade college students and other young voters to participate in that year's Presidential election. During the tour, Melnyck tried to get an interview with Moore, but encountered resistance.

Moore's staff is shown as being uncooperative to Melnyck and her crew -- they're unable to plug into the sound feed at one press conference, and during one of Moore's speeches in Ohio, they are escorted from the building after an altercation with Moore's sister. The film is narrated by Melnyck, who occasionally appears on-camera when asking Moore why he won't consent to an interview, or when she's dealing with Moore's staff. This 2004 footage is interspersed with a biography of Moore's life, focusing on points that differ from the public persona we associate with him. For example, Moore grew up not in Flint, Michigan proper but in Davison, a wealthier area nearby. His short-lived stint as editor of Mother Jones is examined in detail.

A number of film critics and other writers are interviewed about their experiences with Moore, including Roger Ebert, Noam Chomsky and Canadian film critic David Gilmour, who once interviewed Moore about his flop of a feature film, Canadian Bacon. Some of Moore's former colleagues, co-workers and co-activists also appear onscreen. I was more interested in Manufacturing Dissent's examination of documentary filmmaking than its examination of Moore. Manufacturing Dissent presents some of the difficulties people have had with Moore's documentaries, thus touching on the general ethics of documentary filmmaking. For example, various media have reported that Moore played fast and loose with the chronology of events in his 1989 film Roger & Me.

This documentary also finds people who believe that Moore shot footage of himself and interspersed it with other events to imply things that never actually happened -- for example, a shot of Moore trying to ask GM CEO Roger Smith a question at a shareholders' meeting. Several well-known documentary filmmakers offer criticism of Moore's documentary style, including Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) and Albert Maysles (Grey Gardens). Although John Pierson helped Moore sell the distribution rights for Roger & Me, he wasn't happy with Moore's interview of Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine, noting "It's not sad, but it's mean." Manufacturing Dissent drags in spots; specifically, the history lessons that assume we don't remember the aftermath of the 2000 Presidential election or the events at Kent State in the late 1960s. It's also somewhat repetitive in its segments about Moore: do we really need a full-length documentary to tell us that he acts like a jerk sometimes?

The documentary does achieve the result the filmmakers hoped: They want us to be skeptical of the facts that Moore presents in his movies, and check the validity of the footage we're watching. However, this documentary uses some of Moore's own tricks to make some of its points and to add structure and entertainment value. Melnyck's pursuit of Moore as the backbone of this film is a direct copy of Moore's pursuit of Roger Smith in Roger & Me. And in order to get press credentials to attend one of Moore's speeches, Melnyck steals a trick Moore has used in the past, and prints up her own business cards affiliating her crew with a Canadian broadcasting station (admittedly, one that has agreed to air the documentary).

Taking the film's message to its logical conclusion makes me skeptical of the film itself. Did Melnyck and Caine use any of Moore's other filmmaking gimmicks without telling us? Perhaps they did get an interview with Moore and decided not to use it because it didn't lend anything to the film, perhaps they mixed up their own chronology, or re-edited footage to suit themselves. Melnyck seems far less egotistical on-camera and in person than Moore, so I doubt that's the case ... but how do we know what the truth is behind this film or any documentary? Will Manufacturing Dissent make us too cynical for any documentaries, and is that a good or bad thing?